Assistant to the Associate Dean/Assistant Program Director Deborah Torres works closely with Associate Dean and MLIS Program Director Deborah Grealy on program administrative activities, serves as the program's assessment and program effectiveness coordinator, and is an ex officio member of the program's Student Services Committee.

A former MLIS faculty member (Fall 2003-Winter 2010), she assists the faculty in advising MLIS students interested in careers in archives/special collections, digital libraries and public libraries. Her past teaching included courses on Archives and Special Collections (Basic and Advanced), Digital Libraries, and Library 2.0 and Social Networking Technologies. She has coordinated the Practicum course, advised MLIS students engaged in independent study, and served as the advisor for students completing a Master of Organizational Leadership (MAOL) project.

Her past research projects have focused on understanding family historians' and genealogists' use of records and archival collections, and the role of family photographs in everyday life.

Deborah is active in the Society of American Archives (SAA), serves on the Society's Diversity Committee (2011-2013) and is a former chair of the Archival Educators Roundtable. She has a strong interest in diversity in higher education and is a member of the Minnesota Network of Latinos in Higher Education (MNHLE).

Deborah's first career was in newspaper journalism and photography. She entered the LIS profession via public libraries, first serving as a library circulation assistant and then as director of the Saugatuck-Douglas District Library in Michigan. While undertaking graduate studies at the University of Michigan in the 1990s, Deborah made another transition in her interests to archives, digital photographs and family history collections.